


Playing with Fire in a Ridiculous Situation

by Diaphenia



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 04:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2053035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaphenia/pseuds/Diaphenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I had a dream like this once,” Ben whispers. “Your room was cleaner, though.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing with Fire in a Ridiculous Situation

**Author's Note:**

> This is set around the filming of "Help Me (Make Hero's Present Awesome)" and does not include canon after that. Based off an anon prompt, "Bea/Ben, fake dating." Let's get this fandom moving! Prompt me [here](diaphenia.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> With much love to blithers, who encouraged me. 
> 
> And to the cast and crew of NMtD, if you're reading this, do say hello.
> 
> DIAPHENIA OUT

Ms. Regan announces that they’ll working in pairs on the Shakespeare unit, and Beatrice is trying to pick, mentally, between Pedro and Ursula— Pedro would be more fun, but that might stick Ursula with Ben, or one of the other boys from the football team, and who could do that to someone— when the teacher starts partnering people up. “Beatrice Duke... and Benedick Hobbes,” she announces, and Bea swears she hears Pedro _giggle_.

When she whips around, ready to stick a sword in Pedro for his betrayal, he’s innocently scootching his chair over to Ursula’s desk. Naturally.

Instead, she turns to Ben, who is already staring at her. “This is going to be an adventure,” he says, which, _shut up_.

***

She hasn’t been to Ben’s house since she was fourteen, but she remembers how to get there perfectly. She’s only fifteen minutes late, because her feet were absolutely dragging, but if Ben notices he refrains from saying anything. Instead, he practically throws himself at her feet, offering her refreshments.

“So, Bea, you want to come up to my room?” he asks her.

“This has to be the first time you’ve asked a woman that,” she says.

“Certainly the first time she’s said yes.”

“Will your parents be... alarmed?”

“That would require them to be aware,” he says, with just the faintest hint of resentment. She realizes she’s never actually met his family, but then, she’d probably hide too if this were her son. “Come on.”

She recognizes the room from the vlog she actually watched. It’s pretty much the same. “Sit,” he says, gesturing towards the bed.

“I’m not your dog,” she says.

“Dogs get rewards.”

She hopes she isn’t blushing. “There’s nothing you could possibly give me.”

“Fine. Stand.” He sits in a chair he’s dragged from the corner of the room next to the bed, then starts pulling out his books from his backpack.

She sits on the bed. What else is there to do? She places a hand out and touches his pillow, then pulls it back like her hand’s on fire. It feels weirdly intimate. But he sleeps there, and he’s in love with her, and she swears the whole room smells like him.

“You going to get out your stuff?” he asks, looking at her backpack.

She ignores him and grabs his laptop.

“I wouldn’t do that—”

“I just need to check—”

He practically knocks her on her back, and she lands on his pillow, which seems unfair somehow. Then he half- lands on top of her, his hands wrapped around the computer and his elbow half pinning her to the bed.

She shoves him off, because he’s not getting his jollies on top of her, no way. She presses a button and a recording of Ben starts playing. _I’ve got new posters up_.

Ben goes white, and he slams the laptop shut. _So get this_. Clearly the system hasn’t shut down. _I had heard Pedro, Claudio, Balthazar, and Leo—_ Leo, _so this has got to be true, saying the other day that Beatrice— Beatrice.... likes me. She_ likes _me. Why not someone who—_ and the voice cuts off.

Ben chucks the laptop on chair.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” she asks, her voice low.

“I’m sorry,” he says, almost automatically. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“See— was that one of your vlogs? You run out of dead animals to discuss?”

“My videos are insightful—”

“You’re spreading lies about me instead. You get some pathetic crush on me, and you’re telling people I have one on you.”

“They said! Leo said!”

“I don’t like you, you like me!” she says, poking a finger at his skinny chest. “They said it, the girls, I overheard them.”

“No, they said that about you. You had feelings for me. And would ‘rather die than be with me,’ that part seemed important.”

“Well that’s true enough.”

Bea’s head is swimming, but one fact makes it through the cloud of anger and rage and embarrassment. “They’re playing a game,” she yells, just as Ben blurts out, “It’s a trick!”

They both sit back down, contemplating this.

She whacks the pillow. “Obviously we could never _like_ each other. What a stupid plan.”

“Right.” He doesn’t look nearly as mad as she feels, and it annoys the piss out of her.

She says, “As if you and me could get on together. Like we’re just going to fall in— like, we’ll just like each other because they tell us to. Stupid.”

“Stupid.”

“Completely stupid. We need to do something. Make them look as foolish as they’re trying to make us look.”

“Maybe they genuinely thought we’d be a good pair—”

“And maybe they were going to record us doing stupid things and post it all over the internet!”

“Stupid things, like dating each other?”

“Exactly.” She pushes herself back against the headboard, wedging the pillow in between.

He’s still sitting at the edge of the bed, picking fuzzies off the comforter and avoiding looking at her.

She has to break the silence. “You know what we have to do, right?”

“Ask Ms. Regan to partner us with other people? Drop out of school and move to America to pursue rap careers? Or drop the whole thing and just go back to ignoring each other like we usually do?”

“You have never ignored me, but whatever. No. We pretend we’re dating.”

He looks even more confused than usual. “How does one pretend to be dating?”

“ _One_ doesn’t, but two can do all that stuff couples do. Go to the movies and the beach and acknowledge each other presence.”

“Holding hands? Whispering sweet nothings? You on the sidelines cheering for me at games?”

She sends him a withering look. “ _Anyway_. They think it’s cute, they get invested in it, and then _we_ tell them all they’re a bunch of idiots. We get to laugh at them.”

“That’s nonsense,” he says, finally looking at her again. “It’ll never work. And feelings could get hurt.” He waves a hand in her direction, which is patently ridiculous.

 _It wouldn’t be the first time_ , she thinks, but says, “Not possible. I don’t care and you don’t have feelings.”

He sighs. “I don’t?”

“Where’s your camera?”

It’s easier to lie on camera than she ever thought possible, so they put on big smiles and gush about how they were just meant to be.

“We should kiss,” she tells him. “Otherwise no one will believe it.”

“We’re _filming_ ,” he answers, pointing back at the camera. “If you want to kiss for the camera, just do it.”

“We’ll _edit_ this argument out, stupid. You have to make plans or things don’t work.”

“You edit? Just do it and post it and be done. Persnickety little vlog director, aren’t you?”

“Some of us care about the finished product,” she says, and she realizes that she’s pushed a little too close to him during this. She puts her fingers on his chest experimentally.

It’s her first time touching Ben with purpose. And it’s weird and a little bit thrilling as well, if only because it’s clearly thrown him off his game. He was so good at all the stuff before, waxing poetic about her like it was his job, instead of her lame _he’s cute and he makes me laugh_ which is obviously false. But he now looks weirdly nervous, even though this is clearly fake. Just because she’s got her hand on his chest and he’s got a hand covering hers, it doesn’t _mean anything_.

She leans in a bit, and he doesn’t. That’s definitely getting edited out.

Instead, she grabs his shirt and pulls him closer to her. He makes a little surprised noise, which is hilarious, but he kisses her hard, which somehow takes her breath away, almost.

He’s not a great kisser, honestly. She’s been kissed before, not often, but those guys were better. But he’s enthusiastic, and she feels strangely warm when he puts a hand on her jawline.

They could probably get away with just this, but better to have too much footage than not enough. She parts her lips, and honestly, once there’s tongue she thinks more highly of his kissing abilities.

Things get a little murky from there, because they get a little tangled up together. It should be disgusting but somehow isn’t, and maybe that’s just because kissing is pretty cool. Top three things a person can do with his mouth, probably. It’s certainly not him, not the way his hands keep moving or the way he pushes her hair behind her ears. Then he touches her waist, and she realizes he’s about to go under the shirt, and she has to stop this, now.

And she does, a moment later, twisting away from him.

His hair is all messy (who did _that_?) and he’s breathing like he just ran a marathon.

“What’re you looking at me for?” she snaps.

“That was... _really good_ ,” he says. “You were really good.”

She doesn’t know what to say.

***

The next day at lunch the two of them get a round of applause from their traitor friends, who all look pretty pleased with themselves. Pedro even shoves over to give them room to sit next to each other, something they’ve never done. Somehow they can’t even do this correctly, knocking knees in an effort to sit down. Then, the questions start.

Hero asks, “So tell us all exactly how it happened.”

“Well,” Ben says, “She couldn’t resist me.”

“Could, and have,” Bea says, because she’s not going to let that go on record.

“Once we got paired up, it was inevitable. She came over to work on the project and I wowed her with my snack-making skills—”

She hadn’t even had the crackers, is he joking?

“And then I wooed her with words and killer good looks.”

Balthazar claps him on the back, and asks, “Just how long has this been going on, then?”

“I’ve liked her for ages,” Ben says. “But I only realized it recently.”

“And what made you realize it?” Claud asks, snickering behind his hand.

“I couldn’t even say.” Ben looks pleased with his answer, as is the table.

Meg’s question involves vaguely obscene hand gestures, which nope. Bea puts her foot down on that one.

“I think it’s nice,” Ursula says. “You two fit.”

Bea practically growls at her.

***

She assumes that a fake boyfriend won’t be too much of a drain on her free time, but any night she’s home for dinner Hero asks her if she’s hanging out with Ben, or did, or will. And even if Hero wasn’t managing her social calendar, Ben’s walking her to class at least twice a day, carrying her books like she’s an invalid. When she tells him to carry her cell too, as she’s worried she might break a nail, he does so without even sarcasm. It’s weird.

And at lunch, their seats are set now. Once, she tries to sit by Meg, and Pedro almost carries her back to Ben’s side.

There’s no escape, she realizes.

They don’t kiss and they don’t hold hands, which is a good thing. Wouldn’t want to get in that habit.

***

Once, by the tree on the hill, she and Ben are sitting together, working on their physics homework, or rather taking a break and doing impressions of their classmates, when she hears—

“Hey.” It’s John, Pedro’s weirdo brother. She interacts with him approximately never, because Pedro doesn’t bring him around and because she always feels a little off talking to him.

“He’s not here,” she says automatically.

“ _Hello_ ,” Ben says. “That’s how you greet people, darling.”

“You two are dating now, right?” John asks, flicking his eyes over them. “It’s hard to tell.”

“We’re private people,” Bea says.

“Yeah,” John says. “Private people who post all their feelings on YouTube.”

She refuses to dignify that with a response.

“He’s right,” Ben says after John’s left. “And don’t look now, but he’s still watching us.”

She looks. He is.

“What the hell are we supposed to do about that?” she asks.

“We kiss, and then he’ll go away.”

“This is below my dignity.” Ben’s right, though, that John’s a creeper, and they should do whatever it takes to make him leave.

They’re at _school_ though. There are _teachers_ wandering towards their cars at odd intervals, and kids lingering in student parking or waiting for the late bus. She can’t handle this, knowing people will know what she’s doing and thinking Ben is her grand romance.

This time, he kisses her, and unlike last time, which was weird and frenetic, this is slow. He’s got one hand wrapped around her waist and the other on her hip, and she feels a little dizzy.

It’s terrible. Or, rather, it’s way better, and that’s confusing.

“I think he’s gone,” Ben whispers.

“Have you been practicing?” she blurts out.

He grins. "Because I'm even better?"

"Because you used to be pretty terrible."

“I wasn’t bad before.”

“I’ve kissed you, you haven’t kissed you. Come on, what changed?” He ignores her, so she pokes him. “Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.”

“Fine! Pedro taught me.” He holds up a finger. “Pedro _gave me advice_.”

“Of course he did.”

Ben sits back against the tree, twirling a pencil in his hands. Bea doesn’t know what to do, so she drops down next to him, close enough that when he breathes out their arms touch.

“Besides, I wouldn’t cheat on you or anything.”

“You can’t cheat if you’re not really dating.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re not dating. But we’re....”

He never finishes his thought.

***

She wears a peasant skirt she borrows from her cousin, and he wears a big floofy pirate shirt he got from the depths of hell, probably.

Ursula’s got her video camera, which is good, because this is the first and last time Bea’s ever going to perform this sexist nonsense.

“ _Good morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear._ ,” Ben says, and she answers, “ _Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing/ They call me Katharina that do talk of me._ ”

They’ve practiced this scene a million times. Ben pulls her into his lap as per the script, she insults him, he insults her, she insults him, and then he pushes her up.

Only, to her great embarrassment, he sort of keeps her there a moment too long, neither of them speaking. At least a few of their classmates are giggling before she just jumps up and responds to a line he never gave her.

It makes slapping him later in the scene all the more satisfying.

But there’s a moment, right before that, when he’s got the line, _with my tongue in your tail?_ and he wiggles his eyebrows at her and she forgets her line too.

***

She’s not, like, trying to win the tickets, but she’s listening to 107.3 and she calls and she wins. She’s a little concerned she used up a wish, but hangs up and calls Ben immediately. She’s never actually talked on the phone with him before, and he seems a little surprised.

“How do you feel about Fife and the Drums?” she asks.

“Hello to you too.”

“A most wonderful afternoon to you, Mr. Benedick. Happy salutations. No, I’m serious.”

“They’re my favorite band. Obviously.”

“And they’re going to be here on Friday.”

“I know. I tried to convince Claud to buy tickets with me but he’s a married man now, and Balthazar was being weird, and Pedro—”

“I got two passes. Third row.”

If she knew this would shut him up this well, she would've bought them with her own money. “That’s brilliant,” he finally gasps. “And you’re inviting me?”

Then all week it’s all he can talk about, the show and how he’s always wanted to see them live. She swears he’s humming their songs every time she sees him, and this is not some hummable group.

It’s not until she’s actually at the concert that she sees. Fife and the Drums are loud and crazy and somehow really cool too.

It’s just so much noise and rhythm. She never really understood dubstep, and made fun of the hipsters who listened to it, but listening on an iPod was nothing like this. There’s this _anticipation_ , like a collective breath-hold every time right before they throw down these sick drops. And then the crowd goes nuts, all kinetic energy, filling this pub.

Ben likes it, obviously, and she never noticed how he smiles with his whole face, like his eyes crinkle and his forehead moves up and... and it’s awesome, to see someone so _committed_ to being excited.

They’re drinking their third round— she is _not_ going to let him beat her— when they start dancing together. And it’s sort of awkward, how they can’t seem to get to the right rhythm, like he’s a beat off the music and she’s a step behind him. Honestly, they’re the two least musical people in the group, so it’s not the surprising.

“No,” Ben says, “We’re going to do this right.” He listens, tapping his foot to the beat. She’s about to tell him he’s still off when he pulls her against him, and honestly, who cares if they’re following the beat if they’re following each other?

“You’re so bad at this,” she tells him.

“Yeah, but you’re still here with me,” he says, pulling her closer.

“Until the party tomorrow.”

“About that,” he says, and he presses his forehead against hers.

Dancing turns into grinding, and honestly, she’s beginning to see the downside to not dating. Like this is amazing, and feels really good, and why hasn’t she been doing this for years?

Impulsively, she pulls him down to her and kisses him.

“We can’t break up tomorrow,” he says. “We’re getting so good at this.”

“I’ve always been good at this,” she answers, pulling him down again.

She’s drunk and wearing one of Hero’s dresses and generally not herself, so she can kiss him even though no one is watching, even though the game is almost over.

And it’s stupid and hot and unleashes something in both of them. It’s like a fire she can’t quench, something that’ll burn them both. His hands are all over her back, twirling into her hair, and she propels him towards a support beam, and then it’s all friction between the two of them.

***

She wakes up the next morning with a pounding headache and Ben in her bed. She’s in her clothes and he’s in his, which quells a little of the panic, but. There’s a boy in her bed. And it’s Ben. And they’re _cuddling_. Just, what is her life.

She sneaks out from under his arm, and he sleeps right through it. She runs to the bathroom, certain she might throw up, but instead she just stares at herself in the mirror for about an hour.

Then she realizes there’s breakfast noises downstairs. Leo and Hero are from the early-riser side of the family, always up by eight with waffles. She’s more on the 11am side of things, gnawing on a banana or eating cereal straight from the box.

 _Ben_. If he goes downstairs, she’s toast. She fills a glass with water, grabs some aspirin, and flies back to her room.

He’s still asleep, so she locks her door and crawls on top of him, shoving a hand over his mouth before shaking him. He startles awake, practically flinging her off of him before she sees recognition in his eyes.

She puts a finger to her mouth to make sure he’s not going to yell or anything. He nods and she removes her hand, handing him the water.

“I had a dream like this once,” he whispers in between sips. “Your room was cleaner, though.”

“Really,” she hisses.

“And your clothes weren’t present.”

She blushes. “You can’t be here.”

“And yet. Listen, about last night...”

Bea braces herself.

“Do you happen to know if my car is here?”

She’s glad that’s all. She reaches back into her memory. No, they absolutely didn’t drive. There might have been a cab involved. She might have been kissing him in a taxi. She shakes that away. She’s got to get him out of there.

Of course there’s two very big obstacles to that, downstairs.

And she has to get Ben not only out of the house, but back to his car.

 _Fuck_.

Ben takes the aspirin she offers, and then a stick of peppermint gum. “Listen, Bea, last night was—”

“Later,’ she says, grabbing his arm and yanking him out of her bed. “Keep quiet.”

She can hear her cousins downstairs. There’s one staircase, unless he wants to climb the trellis, and she’s pretty sure if he tries to do that they’re looking at a broken leg _at minimum_.

She steps carefully onto the stairs. And behind her, Ben squeaks the floorboards.

“Beatrice?” Hero calls. “Are you up already?”

“No,” Bea calls back. Ben, from behind her, taps on her shoulder and pantomimes hitting himself in the head. She pantomimes the same, to his forehead.

She can hear Hero moving, so she runs down the stairs as lightly as possible, hoping Ben won’t hit every noisy spot possible, which he does.

Then she hears Leo from the living room, coming towards her too, talking about some article he just read.

She’s about ready to hustle Ben back upstairs, and maybe leave him there until Hero’s party, when she sees her cousin’s yellow raincoat. She throws it at Ben, who collapses on the stairs, pulling the coat over him.

Miraculously, Leo doesn’t notice the boy-shaped lump on the stairs, so she steers him towards the kitchen, where Hero’s stirring a bowl of something.

“It’s so nice to see you so early,” Hero says. “I didn’t hear you come in last night.”

Bea remembers sneaking in last night. Every time she giggled he’d kiss her. It was a good system for getting in quietly. “Well. You know.”

Hero doesn’t question her non-answer.

“Probably out with her boyfriend,” Leo says fondly. “You two are an odd match, but I’m not surprised.”

“It’s like fate.” Hero smiles.

“Although, as your legal guardian, I need to make sure you aren’t acting in ways unbecoming a Duke.” 

“Never!”

“I think Ben’s quite the gentleman.” Hero giggles. “Anyway, Bea, I just started this new book I think you’d like. I’m going to go upstairs and—”

“You can’t do that,” Bea says loudly. “It’s your birthday, you can’t be climbing stairs.”

Leo blinks at her. “She can.”

“Happy birthday,” she says, hugging Hero very tightly. If Ben hasn’t escaped by now, there’s nothing she can do. “And on that note. I have to run to my car, just for like, forty minutes bye.” Right as she says that, she hears the back door slam. Her cousins look at her, bewildered. “And when I get home, I’m going to oil those hinges.”

***

Bea _cannot_ handle this party. Ben’s stayed glued to her side since he came over to help, about an hour after she dropped him off at his car. He’d wanted to come over straight away, but she pointed out that it would look a little weird if he was wearing his Friday clothes to the Saturday party. Then he went in for a kiss, which she’d dodged. If he’d been annoyed, he hadn’t shown it.

It’s nice, having someone to help her hang up extra fairy lights in the kitchen and living room, and he did help with the food and the drinks. She didn’t mind it while they were setting up, but it’s the party. They’re going to publicly announce their trick in less than an hour. Time to separate, right? When she suggests he go talk to Claud Ben makes a mopey clown face at her, so she drops it and carts him along.

But everyone’s being a little weird tonight. Ursula looks unusually pensive. Claud’s drunk, completely wasted, and Hero’s makes up for it by getting higher pitched. Balthazar has a fucking ukulele, like he’s trying to seduce Zooey Deschanel, and he’s been in the corner with it basically since he got there. And Pedro’s... who knows what’s going on with Pedro, like ever.

At least Meg’s cool.

And then there’s all these randos, from the year nines Ursula has adopted, and Pedro’s brother, and a bunch of other people too. She’s never seen so many people in the Duke house. She wonders if she should call Leo, who’s just around the way at a little bar with his pals.

“We’ve got to tell them,” she whispers to Ben during a lull.

“Do we?” he asks, looking at her lips.

“What’s your plan, then? We just keep going and never tell them what fools they were to believe us?”

He pulls her around the corner, out of view of everyone else, back against a wall, and waits. She realizes belatedly that he’s waiting for her to speak, to kiss him, to do _something_. And she has to admit she’s tempted. Not all of last night is crystal clear, but she knows she wanted to kiss him, enjoyed it.

Instead, she pulls him back to the living room, cutting the music off.

“Ben and I have an announcement,” she says, and after a moment, people shuffle to where they are standing.

“I do too,” Claud says, slurring his words a bit. “I would also like to be announcing things.”

“You have to wait.” Bea looks at Ben, who’s wincing. “We— Ben and I— know you all tried to trick us into liking each other.”

She waits for them to look appalled, guilty, anything, but Pedro just grins. “You saw the video?”

“No.” She makes a mental note to figure out what video he’s talking about. “But we figured it out, on our own. And we decided to see if you’d all believe you could actually do that, which you can’t.”

“We’re sure everyone had the best of intentions, probably,” Ben adds.

“Which is why we decided to pretend to date, just to see if you’d believe us.” Bea looks at the crowd, triumphant. Several random people have peeled off the group, but her core gang is looking appalled, probably at their own ignorance. “Well, have you got anything to say for yourselves?”

“You’ve been pretending to date each other, to prove some sort of point?” Balthazar asks. Then he mumbles something that sounds an awfully lot like “straight people.”

“I knew,” Ursula says.

“Wait, how?” Bea asks.

“You two aren’t very stealthy, you know that?” Ursula sullenly picks at her nails. “Don’t talk about your secrets at school.”

“You should’ve told us,” Pedro says to Ursula. “Would’ve saved us from this weird bullshit.”

Ursula shrugs. “It wasn’t my secret.”

Pedro shakes out his hands before turning to Bea and Ben. “Do you two even know how to behave? Christ, what a joke. You, Beatrice Duke, have no filter and no soul.”

Ben, finally, speaks. “You’re crossing a line.”

“Yeah, stand up for her,” Pedro says. “You know she doesn’t care about you. You’re just a pawn in her weird little game.”

“Just shut up, Pedro, you’re just jealous because I’d rather fake-date Ben than real-date you.” Bea realizes, about a second too late, that she was crossing some sort of line.

“I’m out,” Pedro yells. “Done.” Pedro tries to storm out, only to be stopped by Balthazar. Pedro pushes him back, far harder than necessary, just as Bea hears Claud—

“You’re a whore!”

Hero’s face goes slack just then.

“And I’m going to show everyone here.” Claud grabs the TV remote and pulls up YouTube, going to Ursula’s channel.

There, posted that day on Ursula’s channel is some new “Watch” video starring the two weirdos, who appear to be filming in a backyard. Claud fast-forwards until the camera’s on the Duke house, when—

Two figures, cloaked in shadows, stumble onto the doorstep and press back, kissing hard. And it’s hard to tell— and she only knows because she’s one half those people— but it’s her and Ben. Only, in the shadows and in her cousin’s dress, she looks like she could be Hero.

“How could you?” Claud yells, his voice tight. By now, half the party has reconvened in the backyard, and his hurt cuts through the mostly silent house.

That year nine of Ursula’s grabs the remote from Claud. “Right then. Sorry about that.”

Hero balls up her fists. “How could you? That’s not me!”

“You cheated on me! And I trusted you.” Claud scrunches his face up. “I _told you stuff_.”

“Man, it’s not—” Balthazar cuts in, placing a hand gingerly on Claud’s back. “Come on. I think you need some fresh air.” He leads Claud out of the house.

John smiles, then follows.

Hero takes off for the stairs, her own tears flowing. Ursula follows her, shooting everyone else a disappointed look.

“These Duke girls are all—” Pedro says, and doesn’t finish.

***

“I need you to kill Claudio for me,” Bea says, hand wrapped around the cake knife.

“You know I can’t do that,” he says.

She draws the knife across a stack of paper plates, cutting in to the top bunch. “If you really liked me...”

“You already know I do.”

She does.

She drops the knife on to the table.

“We need to tell them it was us,” he says a moment later.

“Who would believe us? After we said all those terrible things. Besides, it’s only going to look like I'm lying to defend her.”

He puts an arm around her, really casually, but surprisingly comforting. “Shouldn’t have borrowed her dress. You looked like a cupcake.”

“Sorry for wanting to look nice for our date.”

“You did look nice,” he says, and she does have to smile.

***

The next morning is hell. Leo’s cleaning up, nice big brother that he is, oblivious to the fact Hero hasn’t come out of her room and won’t do so. Hero refuses to speak to Bea, not answering her knocks or her text messages.

Bea stares at her phone.

And makes a call.

***

“You’re sort of a shithead,” Meg says.

“I acknowledge that,” Bea says.

Meg hugs her anyway.

Bea tells her everything, from the beginning. The fake dating. The concert. The weird feelings about a boy that were threatening to ruin her life.

“You know, no one’s going to be mad if you get a boyfriend and actually like him.” Meg looks far too sympathetically at her. “It’s a thing most people do.”

“But it’s not a thing I ever wanted to do. And what does that say about me, if I change my mind? I’d be a hypocrite!”

“People change,” Meg says, rubbing her back. “I never thought I could live without Robbie. I thought I’d be lost without him.”

“I never liked him,” Bea says automatically.

“I could tell,” Meg says dryly. “So could he. Which, you can’t do that to people. You gotta assume the best. They’ll rise to the challenge, mostly.” She sighs. “Robbie didn’t. But. You have to try to be a good person.”

“I want to be a good person.”

“Well, you have to be willing to change.”

***

Bea sits on her bed, and watches the vlogs. Hers. Ben’s. Ursula’s. All of them, in rough order.

She can’t believe how much stuff she missed. Yeah, all the bits about Ben. Had she been watching his videos she might have picked up on his feelings sooner. It certainly explained the pizza night. Yeah, the “love gods” video. She can’t believe she was so easily duped, or that her cousin stole her phone and used it. She’s going to have to put up a lock screen.

And she thinks she finally understands why people thinks she’s judgmental. She cringes every time she insults her friends. She knows she likes them, but she could see how an impartial viewer, or even a partial viewer, wouldn’t know it.

The vlog where she and Ben announce they’re dating, though. He looks like she’s the moon and the stars. But she’s smiling at him, too.

And then the vlogs leading up to the party. She keeps bringing Ben into hers, because he’s always there, and he’s really funny in them too. It’s all quite weird to watch, actually.

She pulls out her video camera, and realizes there’s a file on there she doesn’t remember recording.

She hits play, and watches, fascinated. This... this could help.

She sends out a mass text.

And makes a few calls.

***

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I gathered you all here,” Bea says. She looks around the room. Hero’s not looking at Claud, Balthazar’s staring at his hands. Ben’s distracted by his phone. Ursula’s hiding behind her camera, of course. Pedro’s not looking at anyone. At least Meg is nodding at her.

Bea coughs. “I have a confession. That video Claud showed us? That was me. Me and Ben. I’m wearing Hero’s dress.”

“It is not,” Claud says. “We all know you can’t stand him.”

“Hey,” Ben says. “I’d say she can sort of stand me.”

She flips on the TV, where she’s cued up the video from her camera.

It’s Bea and Ben, drunk after the concert. She’s wearing her cousin’s dress, and she’s hushing him when the sound picks up.

 _“Don’t wake ‘em,”_ she stage whispers.

He shakes his head vigorously. _“Never.”_

She kisses him, with tongue, no prompting. _“Hello viewers!”_ she says. _“If you ever get the chance, Iron and the Fife—”_

_“Fife and the Drums—”_

_“And the Fife are awesome! And you should attend their concerts! Everyday!”_

_“They were pretty cool,”_ he says.  
  
 _“And going with Ben was a lot of fun. Ben’s a lot of fun. You know, I never realized it since I was fourteen, but he’s just like this awesome guy, and like stupid hot?”_  
  
In the video, Ben nods. Outside the video, Ben nods again. Of course.

 _“I think,”_ video Beatrice said, pausing to gulp down some water. _“That we’re falling into_ excessive like _with each other.”_

Ben, somewhere behind her shoulder, mouthed _love_ at the camera.

Then she grabbed his shirt and kissed him again.

Bea cuts off the video. “And from there, it gets a little gross. But the point is, it was me and Ben in Claud’s video. Because we were kissing when no one was watching. And we’re... having feelings... towards each other.”

“I said that yesterday. And you still went and told everyone about our plot,” Ben says, still staring at his phone. “I get that we’re not— not all feelings go both ways. Which is fine.”

“I know. I know. But I want to, like, be a real couple, together. And hang out and not just pretend to hang out,” Bea says.

Hero bursts out, “Life’s not just big declarations. It’s living what you claim to be about.” She glares at Claud.

“I _said_ I was sorry,” Claud mumbles. “I texted you all of today.”

Hero ignores him. “Bea, you can’t just say things. You know that.”

Bea grabs his hands. “And to show it, I went and made two very expensive not-entirely refundable ticket purchases. Ben. I want to spend our gap year traveling together, so I bought us tickets. To start in London. I hope you want this because the tickets are, as I said, not entirely refundable.”

Ben blinks at her in surprise.

“And to sweeten the deal, I found this ‘tea tour’ you can go on. It comes highly recommended.”

“You can’t book tickets without someone’s passport information. How’d you get mine?” Ben asks.

“I called your mother,” Bea answers.

“My mother?”

“Yeah, we’re all having dinner together on Thursday.”

Ben doesn’t say anything. So she tells him to think on it and turns to everyone else.

“And I owe the rest of you an apology too.”

“Yeah you do,” Pedro says, and she has to bite her tongue not to respond to that. She was going to be the bigger person here, no matter what he said about “Duke girls.”

“You were interfering out of love, and maybe a little bit out of boredom,” Bea says. “And I got mad and I didn’t think my plan through. I probably am a bit too proud sometimes.”

“Aren’t we all?” Balthazar says.

“And you guys have been so welcoming since I moved here, and really, I just want everyone to be friends again.” Bea goes around the room, hugging everyone. When she reaches Claud she thinks about punching him, but he gets a handshake and that’ll have to suffice.

She reaches Ben last, and holds back a second, waiting to see what he does. And he grins and then dips her like they’re in some screwball comedy from the 1940s, to the applause of everyone.

“I’ll take that as a _yes_ on traveling,” Bea says.

Ben nods. “But don’t think you get to make all plans. I have some ideas too. Scotland. Budapest. Amsterdam. _Brazil_.”

“Can we just, can we acknowledge that we love gods were right?” Pedro says. He high-fives Claudio.

“Ridiculous,” Bea says.

“I think this would’ve happened without your interference,” Ben says.

“Absolutely not,” Bea says.

Ben shakes his head. “To quote the great bard, _I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;/ And where two raging fires meet together/ They do consume the thing that feeds their fury._ ”

Bea rolls her eyes. “Don’t quote that sexist bastard at me. Who’d want to be one of his ridiculous heroines?”


End file.
